My Raw Prayer at 3:30 am

It’s almost 3:30 am I’m tired but I cannot sleep (so forgive me for bad grammar or spelling in this blog). Lately, I’ve had new battles, new struggles that sin and Satan have used to ensnare me. Anxiety, like sin, crouches at the door of my heart. Depression, like a mist, edges the borders of my mind ready to envelop me into despair. I once thought I was untouchable, that these things would never even be on my radar. As they say, never say never. The battle is complex but what lays at the heart of my anxieties and fears is this, the desire to be accepted and approved by others. I don’t know about you, but it’s been a while since I head God speak to me. It’s very rare for Him to actually say to me, “I love you and accept you despite your flaws.” So the sinful heart settles for the next best thing, humanity. But, it is true there is something right about wanting to be loved by others. God, of course, encourages us to love others as our selves, to build flourishing communities of Jesus loving people where we all can feel like we belong and mean something to someone. But, our hearts are fickle things. It’s not long before we perform before we act before we go above and beyond just because we’re afraid people won’t love us. We start to believe in things we never thought we would, compromising our ethics and relationships that don’t matter to us (even though those ones matter perhaps more to God). You dress differently, speak and do life in ways you know aren’t right for you, and you know deep down inside that you’re a complete and utter broken mess of a thing so you cover up yourself with more masks, more costumes just to fit the bill. And so, one of the greatest battles is the war raged over your own self. The more you cover up and reject your true self, the more you become trapped in an identity that leads to a well of brokenness and darkness.

God… doesn’t offer a way out, He offers a way through. There’s something magical about the early hours of the morning, there’s something very Gethsemane. I’m definitely not sweating blood, but despair breeds depth and introspection and these things seem to be expressed best at 3:30 am. So, like Jesus’ prayer in the garden, my whisper of a prayer to the Almighty is this: